NEW DELHI: The South China Sea is the property of the world and must be free for trade to prosper, external affairs minister SM Krishna said Friday after China warned India against exploring oil in the area.

"India maintains that South China Sea is the property of the world... those trade ways must be free from any national interference. It has to be used for increasing trade related activities among nations which come within the range of the South China Sea," Krishna told reporters here.

He said this fact has been accepted by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and by China in their dialogue with ASEAN group of nations.

"India subscribes to the theory that these trade ways should be free for trade to prosper," he said.

China Thursday asked New Delhi not to get involved in the "disputes". It said the sovereignty of the islands in the region was a major issue and India should not carry out oil exploration till the resolution of the vexed issue.

Krishna denied reports of a strained relationship between India and China.

"There is absolutely no strained relation between India and China. During the BRICS summit, Chinese President Hu Jintao was in Delhi and we had very cordial talks with him and I totally reject that theory," he added.

An influential Communist Party-run newspaper on Friday called on the Chinese government to use â€œevery means possibleâ€ to stop the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) Videsh from going ahead with exploration projects in the South China Sea, warning India that any deal with Vietnam would amount to a â€œserious political provocationâ€ that would â€œpush China to the limit.â€

â€œChina should resolutely stop [ONGC] from pursuing this course of action,â€ said the Global Times, a widely-read popular tabloid known for its nationalist views, in a lead editorial. â€œReasoning may be used first, but if India is persistent in this, China should try every means possible to stop this cooperation from happening.â€

Even as Chinese officials on Friday sought to play down the row with India over projects in the South China Sea, the Communist Party-run paper hit out at the Indian government for testing â€œChina's willâ€, saying that although China was â€œsincereâ€ about its peaceful rise, â€œit will not give up the right to use other means to protect its interest.â€

On Thursday, Chinese Foreign Ministry officials had said they were opposed to any project in the disputed South China Sea, without directly referring to India. Officials said they would not comment on the matter on Friday.

The Global Times editorial described the deal between ONGC and Vietnam as reflecting India's rising ambitions, and a likely Indian move to â€œcounter China's behaviour in the Indian Ocean,â€

â€œChinese society has already been indignant about India's intervention in the Dalai [Lama] problem,â€ the editorial said. â€œIndia should bear in mind that its actions in the South China Sea will push China to the limit.â€

â€œChina cherishes the Sino-Indian friendship, but this does not mean China values it above all else.â€

A lead editorial in the Global Times, a Party-run paper, cannot be published without the approval of the Communist Party's Propaganda Department. The paper is, however, known to represent the views of more hard-line voices within the party.

The editorial reflected a popular sentiment among nationalist voices in the Communist Party, who have been increasingly calling for China to take a more assertive position in its diplomacy.

â€œWe should not leave the world with the impression that China is only focused on economic development, nor should we pursue the reputation of being a â€œpeaceful power,â€ which would cost us dearly,â€ the editorial said.

â€œChina has been peaceful for so long that some countries doubt whether it will stick to its stated bottom line. China should remind them of how clear this line really is.â€ The editorial added that China should, however, â€œremain calmâ€ and not take â€œrash actionsâ€.

The Global Times has, in the past, run editorials hitting out at the Indian government. Chinese Foreign Ministry officials have often stressed that the paper, known to represent the views of more nationalist voices in the Party, did not speak for the government, and have privately criticised the paper for causing strains in relations and not taking a more â€œmoderateâ€ line.

For instance, in December, days ahead of Premier Wen Jiabao's visit to New Delhi, which Chinese officials had framed as an opportunity to draw a line over recent differences, the Global Times published an editorial, written by a General of The People's Liberation Army (PLA), calling on China to take a more aggressive line in its foreign policy.

China, the article said, needed to recover territory â€œlooted by neighboursâ€ - if necessary, by force.

NEW DELHI: The South China Sea is the property of the world and must be free for trade to prosper, external affairs minister SM Krishna said Friday after China warned India against exploring oil in the area.

"India maintains that South China Sea is the property of the world... those trade ways must be free from any national interference. It has to be used for increasing trade related activities among nations which come within the range of the South China Sea," Krishna told reporters here.

He said this fact has been accepted by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and by China in their dialogue with ASEAN group of nations.

"India subscribes to the theory that these trade ways should be free for trade to prosper," he said.

China Thursday asked New Delhi not to get involved in the "disputes". It said the sovereignty of the islands in the region was a major issue and India should not carry out oil exploration till the resolution of the vexed issue.

Krishna denied reports of a strained relationship between India and China.

"There is absolutely no strained relation between India and China. During the BRICS summit, Chinese President Hu Jintao was in Delhi and we had very cordial talks with him and I totally reject that theory," he added.

same can be said about indian ocean then why does indian strategic planner gets disturb when news of chinses exploring indian ocean comes??

Click to expand...

Because we don't want PLAN deployments here in the name of exploration. Communists are adept at faking and spreading lies and we've seen a lot of what CCP is capable of in the last few decades. We don't really go about militarizing everything we touch unlike Chinese.

JALANDHAR: India will not be bogged down by Beijing's warning against exploring oil in South China Sea and is capable enough of safeguarding its financial and strategic interests, Union minster Ashwani Kumar said today.

"South China sea is the property of the world. Nobody has a unilateral control over it and India is capable enough of safeguarding its interests," Union minister of state for planning and science and technology Ashwani Kumar said here.

External affairs minister SM Krishna had recently said that the South China Sea must be freed from any "national interference" as it is the "property of the world".

China has been objecting to any activity in South China Sea region including Indian oil exploration as it has territorial disputes with ASEAN countries like Vietnam and the Philippines.

India in October last year had inked an agreement with Vietnam to expand and promote oil exploration in South China Sea. The pact between the Indian and Vietnamese state-owned oil companies includes new investments and the exploration and supply of oil and gas to the two countries.

SINGAPORE--A member of China's top military brass asserted that, according to history, the South China Sea falls under China's sovereignty.

Ouyang Wei, a colonel and a National Defense University professor, made the remark in an interview with The Asahi Shimbun on June 5 on the sidelines of the 10th Asia Security Summit, dubbed the Shangri-La dialogue.

Ouyang also said the sea area is crucial to China's interests.

It is the first time a top executive in the Chinese military has voiced such views to media.

Previously, a high-ranking Chinese government official was reported to have said in diplomatic negotiations that, from a territorial viewpoint, the South China Sea is of core interest to China, along with Taiwan and Tibet.

However, the Chinese government has not yet stated that view officially.

Asked about the incident in which a Chinese surveillance vessel cut an undersea cable belonging to a Vietnamese research ship in the South China Sea in late May, Ouyang said, "It was a legally justified action in a sea area under the jurisdiction of China."